Gone in one second...

Andrew Malcolm from the Los Angeles Times tries to place some perspective on the $14 trillion (as of last Friday) national debt.

Fourteen trillion is 14-thousand billions. A billion is a thousand millions. A million is a thousand thousands.
A trillion has so many zeroes it won't fit in your checkbook -- 12 zeros, to be exact...

On [June 1] the national debt was "only" $13 trillion. It's 214 days from June 1 through last Friday, Dec. 31. That's 5,136 hours or 308,160 minutes or 18,489,600 seconds.

In those seven short months the national debt increased by $1,000,000,000,000.

That works out to be a growth in national debt of $54,084 borrowed during every single one of those 18,489,600 seconds.

Scroll down to see approximately what that brief second looks like in real money:

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IN BORROWED MONEY EVERY SECOND SINCE JUNE 1

Salmon P. Chase, who knew?